After years of making cheesecakes, Blair
(youngest daughter) introduced me to the
"trick" of using a water bath to
cook cheesecakes. Tried it on the Lemon Curd Cheesecake, and the result was "fantabulous."
A second thing I've learned is to have everything
at room temperature and to NOT overbeat.
This incorporates a lot of extra air that
will cause the cake to "puff."
For more on cheesecake cooking, see Cheesecake-101.